Profoundly naive question about angry animals

I'm working on my first tamer, and ust starting to learn how to do it. I bought an advanced char token, so my lore and taming are a little over 85. I've spent alot of time training up my magery skill so I can defend myself, now I'm just setting out on taming training. So here's my incredibly naive question about taming, the answer which I failed to find among guides and faqs:

For creatures like drakes, beetles, just about anything more aggressive than a cat, how do you actually go about taming them? I mean, I understand about beating htem into submission, but does that stop them from turning around and beating you into your grave while you coo your taming drivel at them?

This morning I was trying to tame a drake. I got its hp as low as it could go without dying, but every time I tried to tame it it came very near to killing me.

I dont have peacemaking or that sort of thing, and I realize how noob I sound, but I humbly beseech you, illustrious sages of creature arts, advise me!

(the final sentence of the above statement represents exactly why I have avoided roleplaying)

I too have no peacemaking ability. I also take a beating. How I manage to tame the angry creatures is to first make a last target macro, then I use that macro while staying just out of the reach of their physical attack (usually two steps). I often have to run because I have been poisoned or I need a heal. What you are learning now is what is generally called lead taming.

I believe my last target macro is...
Use skill---animal taming
wait for target
last target

When you're taming aggressive creatures, practice, practice, practice. Start out with something that doesn't do too much damage (like mongbats, although I think you can start out higher than that, such as giant spiders). Remember not to stay too close. Stay two tiles away to initiate the taming attempt, and then when you start, move a few more tiles ahead. I think the max distance is eight tiles.

After you get comfortable staying out of hitting range, you can head for faster creatures such as frenzied ostards. Slowly progress until you feel comfortable taking ranged attacks. Imps are a good start for magical creatures.

If your trying to gain skill don't forget about para taming. Paralyze a critter then make several attempts to tame from 2 tiles away before it runs out. If you stand next to it you'll punch it and break para. Another thing to try is catching your critter of choice in a para field, these last a bit longer then para spells.

Just don't para tame a critter you want to use for fighting. Your pet gets penalized on it's stats if you para tame it.

Not sure if this is relevant or not, but if you're trying to raise your taming skill, you can be taming great harts, white wolves at your level, and then bulls all the way to GM. All are non-aggressive.

However, if you`re looking for a keeper pet, get some taming/lore jewelry on and use the lead taming tips above. Or, ask a friendly tamer to help

In order to lore wild critters your Animal Lore needs to be at 110 skill... aka get a powerscroll and use it then get jewls to boost it to that level and then you can lore everything you wish too.. makes it easier to pick what you want to tame as a keeper.....

I've just done exactly as you have with an advanced token on a new Tamer. However, I stoned his Taming skills and used another token for an advanced Bard. This is my 3rd Tamer and Bard skills really compliment Taming.

My new Tamer is at 100 Lore and 94 Taming without ever taming anything aggressive. At this level I do a few White Wolves and few Gaman for about an hour a night. Last night I gained 0.3 Lore and 0.3 Taming and that's a good night!

In order to lore wild critters your Animal Lore needs to be at 110 skill... aka get a powerscroll and use it then get jewls to boost it to that level and then you can lore everything you wish too.. makes it easier to pick what you want to tame as a keeper.....

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Actually you only need GM to lore tamables. Need 110 to lore anything.

I've got the "dang out of stable space! I know let's make a new tamer" thing every now and then still. It's a pain in the rear to try and lore something that I'm used to loring and it tell me that I need more skill.

Stratics VeteranStratics LegendCampaign Supporter

There are four basic ways to approach this, lead taming, para taming, peace taming, and honour taming. The most basic one is lead taming, and it may well be the only one available to you at this point, the other three require some advancement before you can really start using them effectively, although all of them are somewhat useful at lower skill levels.

1. Lead taming has been discussed. Basically you make a macro for taming, bind it to a convenient key. Mine is bound to ctr-shft d. Most of my binds are on ctrl-shft, especially the ones I use most often, and they are all set up so I can access them easily with my left hand. Most of the "skills" in UO come down to key binds that are set up for easy access, and knowing them so well that using them is instinctive.

Once you have your key binds set up you just run up to the critter, and keep trying until you actually start taming - this can take a number of tries with aggressive creatures before you get passed simply pissing the critter off. The trick is to be able to use your taming macro and keep close enough to be able to start to tame and far enough away so the critter can't eat you. Once you have started the taming you don't need to stay quite as close and you can move a couple of extra tiles away.

One important thing with lead taming is having decent resists, especially if what you are trying to tame is a spell caster. If it isn't a spell caster, and you are a skilled lead tamer, it should never get close enough to hit you, if it is a spell caster having good resists is important, especially fire and energy resists. Sometime no matter how good you are, due to lag or whatever, a critter will get close enough to chew on you, in which case it is wise to have good resists that match the damage the critter does - cold and energy for cu sidhe, physical for hiryus, energy and physical for bake kitsune, etc. etc.

All of the other four forms of taming have limitations and you will not be able to use them in all situations, lead taming is the one that you can always fall back on, so it is important to know how to lead tame, even if you don't plan on making that your main method of taming.

2. Para taming is another common form of taming, however, for any of the more powerful tameables, you will need to have very high evaluate intelligence for it to work (for most of the high level tames 110 - 120). Also if there is any chance that the critter can have skills that will be over 100 after taming, you do not want to use it, as it will lower it's final skill cap in those skills (you can do a search on these forums for para taming and you should get more information on that). The current list of critters you do not want to para tame includes rune beetles, hiryu's (lesser and full), fire steeds, and reptalons. If the new dragon ever makes it to your shard in it's present form, not only will you not want to para tame it because of it's high skills, but it will laugh at you if you try...

With para taming you cast the spell paralyse, and start attempting to tame. Hopefully your taming attempts take hold before the paralysis wears off, if they don't, run off, cast invisibility on yourself, come back and try again. If your taming attempt takes hold you can then either lead tame it, or if your evaluate intelligence skill is extremely high, you may be able to cast invisibility on yourself before it is able to move.

When you become truly skilled at para taming, you will get to the place where you can tame most critters without even moving. For aggressive critters you cast paralyse, start the tame, and then what I do is cast invisibility roughly three times in a row, at the end of which I either have a tamed critter, or I cast paralyse again and start the process all over. With cu sidhe you only need to cast invisibility once as it is not normally aggressive.

3. Peace tamers are really the royalty of tamers and if actually taming critters is your primary object as a tamer, this is the template to choose. However for the more powerful tameables, you need to be a legendary bard for your barding skills to be useful (120 in both musicianship and peacemaking). With peace taming basically all you do is peace the critter and tame it. The peace may wear off part way through the attempt, in which case you will need to end up by lead taming (I'm not sure if you can use the peace skill again before you finish taming a critter, someone else will have to clarify this point).

4. Honour taming is so easy, it is almost criminal, but it takes a lot of work to get to the place where you can do this. Basically what you need to do is develop the honour virtue, and use that virtue on yourself before the taming attempt. Honour takes a lot of work to develop, and you lose a lot of honour every time you use it on yourself, so you can only use this method of taming sparingly. Basically when all of the other kinds of taming fail, this one is the one that you will be able to use.

You really need to have level two honour (Follower) for it to be truly useful. Level three honour (Knight) is extremely hard to come by, and even harder to hang on to, so I don't even bother with that. If you are an advanced tamer level two honour should be enough to allow you to tame just about anything.

To gain honour you invoke the virtue (again make a macro and bind this to a key - I have it bound to ctrl-alt-shft a because I've run out of convenient ctrl-shft key combinations for my left hand), and then you target some monster with high level fame before you attack it to kill it. This is called "honouring" your opponent. You can only honour undamaged monsters, so you must honour it before you attack it, and before it casts bless or strength on itself (this is called "buffing"). If it does buff itself before you can honour it you can curse it to return it to full health, if you have high evaluate intelligence, then attempt to honour it again).

The absolute best mob ("monster or beast") to gain honour on is the succubus. If you have a good cu sidhe they aren't too hard to kill, and they give a ton of fame, karma, and honour. However, if you are in Ilshenar, and a paragon spawns, be prepared for the fight of your life (in fact if you don't have a very advanced character and know how to use it effectively, you will die). However, if you do manage to kill a paragon succubus, I'm not sure that even peerless and Doom bosses give more fame, karma and honour than they do.

The reason why honour is so powerful is that if you honour yourself, no mobs will attack you. Even when you attempt to tame, you may anger your target, but it will still not attack you. However, you have to successfully tame your pet before the honour runs out, this is why level two honour is important. It is possible to tame critters with level one honour, but if the critter is at all obstinate, you will probably run out of time, and you won't be able to honour yourself again for another five minutes.

I am a mage tamer (para tamer), so I use honour on critters that you shouldn't para tame: rune beetles and hiryus primarily. What I do is kill all the ones that aren't good enough, and when I find one I like I lead it off to a safe area where it isn't surrounded by spawn, run off, cast invis, mark a rune, go stable my pet, come back and use honour to tame the beast. I'm very fussy about the pets I tame, but I still have to spend a fair bit of time hunting succubus for honour.

I have a question about gaining honor with a tamer however. I read that to gain honor you needed to solo your opponent without pets. Is this true or do you just need to attack very high level monsters to gain honor?

Lastly I managed to kill a paragon succubus once. The rest of the time they eat me for lunch. The time I killed it I had it all to myself and managed to stand 2 squares away from my Cu to heal it. I was out of range of its area attack and could still heal my Cu. Every other time I've tried someone runs by and it runs after them ruining my spacing. Is there an easier way that I'm not thinking of?

You can gain honor with any character, including a tamer. You gain more the more closely you adhere to the rules. As a tamer you need to attack higher fame creatures than a fighter would to get the same gains. Use only one pet. If you use more it reduces the amount you gain even more.

Thank you all for your great posts! I'm going to experiment with all this; I feel confident that I have a pretty good grasp of it now. Honestly, I think this has been the most informative, helpful and nonjudgemental set of replies I've ever recieved on stratics. If this is what tamers are like, I have even more reason to become one. Thank you!!!

I use ogre lords to gain honor. Run in until you are about 6-8 tiles away and use your macro to honor the ogre lord. Then all-kill it with your pet but stand in the original spot yourself. Do not peace the target. Discord is allowed.

When you get a chance, run in fast until you are standing very close to the ogre lord. From there you can both vet your pet and still gain honor. Greater Heal works from the spot where you honored the ogre lord. Invis works fine if the OL targets you, but the timing is close.

Stratics VeteranStratics LegendCampaign Supporter

I can get up to level three honour using a cu sidhe on succubus. But level three takes a long time to reach. I'm usually just happy with keeping it up in the level two range. That is usually more than enough to tame whatever I wish, even with failures.

Stratics VeteranStratics LegendCampaign Supporter

Honestly, I think this has been the most informative, helpful and nonjudgemental set of replies I've ever recieved on stratics. If this is what tamers are like, I have even more reason to become one. Thank you!!!

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Some of us get cranky every now and again, but this is a pretty special forum. And you are welcome, and welcome to the brother and sisterhood.

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However, if you are in Ilshenar, and a paragon spawns, be prepared for the fight of your life (in fact if you don't have a very advanced character and know how to use it effectively, you will die).

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There is one tricky thing about succubi. They have an area of effect attack, so that if you are close and they use it, you will take damage and they will switch target to you from your pet, so you have to use magery to keep your pet healed, although a well trained cu sidhe won't need too much help. However, this is the reason why paragon succubus are so tough. They are lightning fast, they do a ton of damage, and it is extremely difficult to keep even a good, well trained puppy healed with just magery. In fact, the paragon succubus is one thing I use to judge my template.

When I first started fighting them, I simply couldn't keep my puppy healed. I would run out of mana, so I would have to run off, and kill the game to save my puppy, and hope that the succubus didn't find me. I died a lot. However, I have made changes to my template and suit, and gained some experience, and now I can kill them most of the time without too much difficulty, although it does take a while, and it is still a good fight.

The changes to mana regeneration not too long ago threw me for a loop at first, but I have managed to adapt and I used the paragon succubus as a tool to judge how well I had adjusted.

another tip you might try for aggressive creatures is find a cheap spell channeling archery weapon (spell channeling is handy so you dont have to drop the weapon to cast)....be sure you don't have any arrows on your char though!!!

by using this method you don't auto defend by striking out at your taming target...you might of seen your char do this in mid tame.

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